


Along Came a Spider

by DaisyIfYouHave



Series: Overwatch 2.0 [2]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: F/F, Gen, gay spider denial
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-26
Updated: 2017-06-26
Packaged: 2018-11-19 11:30:30
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,094
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11312481
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DaisyIfYouHave/pseuds/DaisyIfYouHave
Summary: One shot, one kill. It should be an easy rule to live by. Should.





	Along Came a Spider

But it hadn’t been one shot, it had been several, and she hadn’t died at all, both of which were things that made Gabriel crankier than usual. It wasn’t her fault. It hadn’t been her brilliant plan to bring in a man who had opposed them before, even if it had been a half-resistance. You couldn’t trust someone who was not a true believer.

But, as he had pointed out, they weren’t exactly swimming in agents, and Jesse McCree was a crack shot, as they say, so she had demurred.

It should have been her shot, but she did not take it, and she got an earful later. She could not explain to her superiors, what had made her stop, the way she looked at Widowmaker through her own scope, as if she had known she was there the whole time.

Callsign: Tracer. After the incident at King’s Row, she had poured over the files. A young pilot, and a terrible accident. A ‘naturally resilient personality’. Nobody really knew how old she was anymore, or what her life would look like, or even if she could be counted as fully human.

She understood that, at least.

She was still sharing that strange and unfamiliar stare through the sight of a gun when she heard the shots, saw the look on Tracer’s face change to shock, saw the blue light as she blinked away.

“I got her.” Came the growl through the radio.

A spider has no feelings, she reminded herself.

 

**

And so she masked her relief as Reaper dervished about the room, a long line of Spanish words that she did not exactly know, but was certain were not complimentary.

“You didn’t make the kill shot.” He blitzed across the room into McCree’s face. “You were FIVE FEET FROM HER.”

McCree said nothing, merely set his mouth in a hard line and stared.

He gestured wildly as he turned back to where she sat, her legs delicately crossed, her hair up in a restrained and elegant bun, as she examined her fingernails.

“That GIRL has gotten in our way, over and over, and you–”

“She didn’t get in my way.” She looked up at him. “I had no trouble completing my task.”

He looked down at her, as if deciding whether he wanted to push the very bizarre issue of Widowmaker’s failure to kill Tracer at King’s Row. He had avoided it—he had never known her to do such a thing, she, if anything was a bit overzealous in her kills. Tracer was unbelievably fast, and Widowmaker had her, could have slit her throat if she wanted, and did not.

It was, frankly, too eerie to acknowledge.

He whirled around, instead. “Half the point of the mission was to eliminate her!”

 

**

And that, she thought, is how she ended up dangling from the eave of Overwatch’s headquarters, where Tracer lay quietly in a hospital bed. She looked better than she had any right to, having been plugged through with three of McCree’s shots—Dr. Ziegler was good at her job—but she looked smaller even than usual somehow, in a bed made for your average Overwatch agent. She could be called many things, but average would never be one of them. Widowmaker ran her eyes from the end of the bed to the tiny bump of her toes, up to the loose tank top, her accelerator strapped to her chest (how did the team operate with that thing on? Was it enough if they laid it in her hand? How did she shower? She had many questions, none of which seemed to have immediate answers), and then to her tiny button nose underlined by the oxygen tubing.

When Talon spoke of Tracer’s menace, of her boldness and speed and deadliness, you would have thought her six feet tall, and it always gave her a laugh to remember that the fearsome Overwatch agent was a tiny, cheerful woman, and had managed to bully an entire agency on the back of her own courage.

She dropped to the ledge, and then immediately rethought that decision as the door opened, and tucked herself dark against the shadows. Mercy. They could use a doctor like her over at Talon, and she believed an offer had been made, which she could have told them the good doctor would never accept. People never watched. All the answers were laid in front of you, if you just watched. Amelie Lacroix watched, and Widowmaker watched even deeper, curled up as she was in the corners of the night.

“Lena.” Mercy had a soft voice, and a softer demeanor, as she gently touched Tracer’s shoulder.

Tracer moaned, and blinked open her eyes slowly. “'Ey, Angela.”

“How are we?”

“Oh, you know.” She shifted a bit, and grimaced, “Pharah probably accusing me of laying down on the job.”

Mercy laughed as she adjusted the IV. “She’s not quite that serious, Lena.”

“It'int she?”

As if on cue, she entered the room, and even Widowmaker was impressed at the sheer intimidation of her size.

“I don’t think it’s a good idea to have her in a room with such a window.” She walked to it, and Widowmaker shrank against the wall, praying she wouldn’t see, cursing herself for not making the move earlier, and cursing Pharah for having the wit to guess at it. But the moment passed, and she turned her attention to a small bouquet of flowers on the table. “Have these been screened?”

Mercy sighed. “Those are from Winston, Fareeha.”

Tracer closed her eyes against the flood of pain medication. “She’s not quite that serious, Lena.”

“Hush.” Mercy tapped her shoulder in a playful swat, and Tracer laughed, though she quickly found it a mistake, and pressed her head into the pillow. Mercy laid her hand on her back. “Rest now. Fareeha,” she called over to where Pharah was looking into a air grate, “We should go home.”

She turned around with an air of indignation. “I suppose I trust you this is secure.”

Mercy simply took her arm and began to lead her out of the room, Pharah giving in and drawing an arm around her, nodding softly at Tracer and shutting the door softly behind them.

Tracer sighed to no one. “Seems nice, that.” Her eyes began to close slowly, her vision hazy, and Widowmaker slowly popped the lack to the window, barely breathing as she listened to Tracer’s breath deepen and slow as she gave in to the chemical cocktail, her body relaxing against the softness of the pillows at her back.

Widowmaker slid through the small crack she made in the window, and crept to Tracer’s side. How long had it been since she had been so close? Freckles. She had freckles. She had never noticed this, through the scope and her goggles and the speed at which she moved, but there they were, crossing her nose like a milky way across her face. Her hair was brown, yes, but it glowed with chestnut and cocoa, falling and exploding like the sea in a storm across the pillow. Her aspect was boyish and sweet and a little mischievous, like a regular British Huck Finn. Her lips were girlish, though, soft and pink and delicately split in sleep.

She reached out her hand toward Tracer’s face, just to feel the softness of her cheek.

The door cracked open, and Widowmaker hit the floor, scampering under the bed, holding her breath.

Winston lumbered through the door, edging himself just a bit sideways to fit through—the hospital wing had never been remodeled for him, not really—and settled in next to the bedside. Widowmaker stared at his feet, wondering if this was the moment that her life as a sniper came to a violent end at the hands of a giant ape.

Winston stretched his hand out and laid it as delicately as he could across Tracer’s shoulder. “I’m sure you’ll have me throwing you across the room again in no time. Nothing keeps you down.” He pinched together his fingers and adjusted the strap of her tank top, sighing heavily.

He had found her, lying by a fountain, almost tranquil in the moonlight. You could almost forget the harshness of her breathing next to the quiet babble of water. She had picked a lovely spot to die. He’d grabbed her, unthinking, with one hand, clutching her to his chest and racing back to the team, hoping, hoping that it wasn’t too late, that she wasn’t too far gone, that one of the rare humans that never treated him as something else–to be respected and treated well but never held close—that she might leave this world was enough to bring up that primal fear again.

But, of course, he reminded himself sitting here, when the world ended, it would be Lena as queen of the cockroaches.

Widowmaker, meanwhile, was wondering if she could get herself to the other end of the room and get a shot off before Winston jetted across the room and smashed her body into an elegant French jelly.

She might taste nice on a baguette, with some champagne.

No, she would simply sit, and wait, as Winston told stories to Tracer. It seemed silly to her, he was telling stories about things they had done together, which, presumably, she remembered, and then Widowmaker realized: He was doing that silly thing people did, where they filled the silence with words, just to hear something, just so they didn’t have to live with their own thoughts. It was stupid, and pointless, and Winston wasn’t even human, why pick the most debased attributes of humanity to, well, ape?

Her back had a cramp in it. She was running out of internal swears.

Winston gave a huff. “I should let you sleep.” He laughed, and affected a high Cockey accent. “I’m already sleeping, Win, c'mon.” He patted her legs. “Without you around, we all have to take turns picking on Fareeha. It’s not as much fun.”

Widowmaker let out her breath with a dramatic puff as he left the room. Kill her and go. It’s that simple. There’s still time for a glass of wine and a rerun of The Joy of Painting before bed.

She slid out from under the bed and snapped to her feet, her gun drawn. Her enemy, the thorn in her side, the reason she had to hear Gabriel complain every morning at their meetings, it would be over in one moment.

And then, Tracer gave a small whimper in her sleep. It was nothing like her at all, free of bravado and humor, just tired and quiet.

Widowmaker leaned in and whispered. “All is well, mon petit.” She jumped back a oment, hardly able to believe that it had some out of her mouth, disgusted at the feel of it.

She aimed her gun, cocked, and…lowered it. She shoved it angrily into the pouch at her hip and stormed toward the window, filled with a million feelings, rage and self-hatred and weakness and something soft and warm and awful.

She flung wide the window, not caring who heard.

“Am'lie?” She stopped, not daring to breathe, at the window. She must have read her file, too, and her named in Lena—TRACER’s mouth was all wrong, all angles, and yet she was somehow certain that was the way it was always meant to be said, a string pulled on the harp of her heart sounding a note she did not know. “You can stay.”

“Stay?” The thoughts turned and moved like a kaleidoscope, and she slowly walked back toward Tracer’s bedside.

“With Overwatch. Here. I’d tell them.” She was trying to keep her eyes open, and failing dismally.

Widowmaker laughed darkly. “They would kill me, and I would not blame them.”

“No, I’ll tell them!” She struggled to sit up, and fell against the bed, twitching with the pain of it.

“No, no.” She drew in close, her hand on Tracer’s shoulder, her other stroking her hair. “They will never believe you. Even now, we are only meeting in a dream.” She kissed her forehead. “Adieu, cherie.”

“Wait.”

But Widowmaker was already walking to the window, already far gone beyond Tracer’s voice, already making the thousand excuses she would make the next day.

I was surrounded by agents. There was no safe exit plan. I would have been killed, and Talon cannot spare me. Their forces are too tight. The base is well armed.

I could never have taken the shot.


End file.
